Antietam shows Sabers 'no mercy'

Anthony Johnson said he was so excited about the prospect of playing in his first state tournament game that he could barely sleep the night before.

"I was hyped all day," said Antietam's 6-4 senior center. "That's all I was thinking about. All day, all night, couldn't sleep, I was thinking about this game."

Johnson certainly was wide awake when the Mounts took the floor for their first PIAA Tournament game in a decade Tuesday night against Susquehanna Community.

He scored the first basket of the night on a baseline jumper, had 14 points by the end of the first half and matched his career high with 26 as the Mounts rolled over the Sabers 74-52 in a Class A preliminary game at Stony Creek.

The Mounts (17-9), the fourth-place finisher in District 3-A, might have been inclined to take Susquehanna lightly.

After all, the Sabers (8-17) showed up with the worst record of any team in the Class A tournament field.

That, Johnson insisted, was not about to happen.

"It's a state playoff game, man," Johnson said. "Gotta go hard all the time. It's the first (for our school) in 10 years."

"And the first one for us," added Mounts forward Andrew Day. "No mercy."

The Sabers, who accumulated a lot of those losses playing bigger schools, were better than advertised.

Cole Mallery, who scored a team-high 23 points, moved well with and without the ball, and shot it well, also. He and his teammates hustled and moved the ball crisply and gave the Mounts a challenge in the early going.

It wasn't until a 10-point run, fueled by four baskets from Johnson, that Antietam took charge, moving ahead by 15 points midway through the second period.

Johnson, Antietam's leading scorer at 14.8 per game, has gotten most of his points this season in the paint, where he's active on the glass and has a nice touch inside.

He's also got a nice touch from the perimeter as he showed against the Sabers, consistently burying open 12- to 15-foot jumpers from the baselines.

He was good on 13-of-20 shots from the field.

"He's not a power forward type player," Mounts coach John Rizzo said of Johnson. "He's a finesse, short-corner 15- to 18-foot shooter. If he gets his feet set, I think he has the nicest touch on the team and he's the most consistent (shooter).

"Some of our opponents look at him and figure him as a big. He really isn't a big; he's athletic and he's aggressive at the rim but his hot spot is 15 to 18 feet from the rim. We embrace that and we encourage him to shoot that."

The Sabers, the second place team out of District 12-A, were within eight points of the lead two minutes into the third quarter before Day helped push them back one final time.

Day hit each of his five shots in the third period and scored 12 points, igniting a 15-4 closing run that saw Antietam lead by 19. Their lead grew to 31 in the fourth quarter.

Day finished with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting. He grabbed 11 rebounds, as did Johnson, helping the Mounts more than double up Susquehanna (39-19) off the glass.

"We came out strong," Johnson said. "I knew we were gonna do good tonight, because everybody was feeling it."

Antietam advances to a first-round game Friday against District 1-A champ Church Farm at Coatesville at 6.

"These guys were excited tonight," Rizzo said. "They were focused on their goal. They wanted to get a win.

"Without looking ahead, we focused on this team tonight. I thought we came out and executed a little better, shot the ball better than we have the last few weeks and we rebounded as good as I could ask for."